


centuries mean nothing to kingdoms that fall

by DecayingPapers



Series: ab epistulis [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, its the ghost au no one asked for, the character death is only mentioned nothing explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 23:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12352638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecayingPapers/pseuds/DecayingPapers
Summary: Grantaire is seen, then he starts seeing himself. Enjolras burns.A tale of ghosts and letters, told in paintings - almost.





	centuries mean nothing to kingdoms that fall

**Author's Note:**

> i bet you can tell I love jehan from this

They walk into each other’s lives suddenly and quite literally and, barely even acknowledging it, Enjolras suppresses a cold shiver.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire is still getting used to not being seen, even though he’s had more than enough time for it to stop being a novelty for him. He's still getting used to not being seen, but the fact that he’d lived his life without being noticed helps just a little. 

 

The pavement is unusually empty as the early morning sun settles low on the skyline, sending a promise of a bright yet still freezing winter day. Grantaire isn't in a rush, revelling in the dry air rapidly cooling his cheeks and fingertips. He takes in the still fresh snow shooting the light back at him as he strolls down the quiet pavement, which may be why he doesn't notice the figure wrapped up tightly in hats, scarves and gloves rushing from behind a building. 

 

He doesn't pay that person a second thought, not blinking an eye when he passes straight through them. What does make him backtrack and turn his head towards the figure marching further and further away, is the way they seemed to shiver when he walked through their body, as if being put under a cold stream of water. Grantaire stands there, taken aback and he’s as excited by the thought of having someone maybe notice him as he is terrified of it.

 

* * *

 

 

Morning walks have become Grantaire’s routine and, even if he claims it’s just to help him unwind, Éponine shoots him a knowing look every time he puts on that hat he knitted for her but actually wears more often than she does. It puzzles Grantaire what exactly she’s figured out and how on Earth she did that, but he might just be too busy strolling down the now all too familiar street, his hopes high, to think about it.

 

Nothing happened yesterday, or the day before that, but three days ago Grantaire saw a flash of a warm jacket and a woollen hat, so he grips the hot cup of coffee in his hand and waits. Now, Grantaire wants to feel guilty for being this insistent, but it’s lonely. It’s lonely and he’s forgotten what it’s like to make someone shiver, and it might have just been the cold, and if it doesn't work he’s going to leave that person alone, but he needs to know. There’s hope simmering in his chest, there’s anticipation hollowing his lungs and tightening his throat. 

 

No following, no walking further than the cinema at one corner and the grocery shop at the other, because Grantaire isn’t cruel or creepy. Just a stack of post it notes and a pen in case it’s true, in case it really does work like that and Éponine’s stories of girlfriends found and seeing weren’t just miracles.

 

The morning sun settles on the pastel blue sky as the air shifts and suddenly Grantaire isn’t breathing alone on the frozen street. A huddled figure turns the grocery store corner, wrapping their arms around their body as if to save off the last of warmth. Grantaire startles, almost spilling his coffee. He leans on the cold concrete wall, feigning nonchalance, but he needs to clench his teeth to relieve the tension just a little. He braces himself for the overwhelming crush of disappointment and then-

 

A shiver, and Grantaire scribbles on the post-it, handwriting messy and letters curling around relief. He runs up to the person, sticks the post-it to their bag, takes a gulp of his now cold coffee and takes off in the opposite direction.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire hasn’t looked. He hasn't looked because searching would be too tempting then, he hasn’t looked because he wasn’t looking before and didn’t really see a point in having someone’s face haunt his dreams if he was never going to see that face in flesh again.

 

He’s been making a point of not actively looking for any signs over the last few days, which causes him to almost fall over when he finds a post-it stuck to the wall of the building he always leans on waiting. Grantaire thinks it must have been stuck there not that long ago and, even though he knows he’s missed the person for the day, he can't help but skip to his and Éponine’s apartment.

 

* * *

 

Enjolras’ presence burns. The notes he gives Grantaire are always filled with a fire that could supply the entire world with warmth, even though the author himself sniffles and rubs his palms together constantly. 

 

Enjolras burns in his passion, soothes in his empathy.

 

There isn’t any way in which Grantiare could pay back Enjolras’ friend who convinced the man to try to contact him, not for the discussions written in blunt pencil and left under rocks on windowsills, not for the look on Enjolras’ face when he actually sees a point and Grantaire can practically hear him going over new paragraphs in his head.

 

Grantaire slowly but surely starts letting himself look now and suddenly regrets every moment he  has spent with his head turned away.

 

* * *

 

The first time Enjolras sees him, Grantaire doesn't fall asleep far into the wee hours of the morning. Hope flies around in his stomach, forcing him to picture reflections in mirrors and hands tangling in hair.

 

Even though to Enjolras he’s nothing more than a silhouette in the bright morning light, Grantaire can’t help but wonder.

 

* * *

 

Every time Grantaire sees more recognition in Enjolras’ eyes, his heart soars. He doesn’t understand why Enjolras beams when their touch becomes more and more tangible or when he notices birthmarks on Grantaire’s neck, or when he can feel exactly what the texture of Grantaire’s hair is like, but he does. There's so much joy in Enjolras’ eyes and the blood warming the golden skin of his cheeks makes Grantaire’s toes curl.

 

The first time they hold hands, it’s everything Grantaire has ever felt and more. Enjolras’ fingers tug at his heartstrings and bring out memories of days when he would never have done it.

 

The first time they kiss, Enjolras’ icy lips light a fire behind Grantaire’s eyelids and they aren’t even that cold anymore afterwards.

 

* * *

 

The wind of October turns into a piercingly cold November, then into a comforting December snow that finds Enjolras and Grantaire standing in a tiny kitchen, ignoring the howling of the drafty window by the sink. Grantaire’s dark hair hangs in front of his eyes heavily thanks to the steam coming from the beaten pot as he chops carrots. Enjolras breaths in, his eyes glued to Grantaire now that he can finally see and feel him, still not quite able to believe that this extremely real man standing right next to him is a spirit. It gets harder to think of him as such when his hands roam all over Enjolras’ body. 

 

Grantaire is humming under his breath, a calm and steady tune that mixes with the distant cries of the blizzard outside. Inside this tiny apartment, there’s nothing bur warmth and safety. Smells, sounds and the steam envelop Enjolras, Grantaire’s arms without him needing to put the vegetables down. Enjolras does up the two remaining buttons of his woollen cardigan and shivers lightly.

 

* * *

 

A March sunrise wakes them up with humid air and not so subtle sneezes that manage to drown out the rain hitting the windowsill steadily. They wrap themselves up tightly in duvets, blankets and the warmth of flannel pyjamas, since the tea standing on the bedside table got cold ages ago. Grantaire stretches and turns to his side, not at all startled with Enjolras’ icy fingers catching his hand to hold it closer to his heart. The window that they have been both promising to fix lets in a breath of piercing air but Enjolras, huddled under thick warm blankets and with socks on his feet, doesn't even flinch. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It can be quite unsettling for Granite to be so out there, but god knows he’s getting used to it. Enjolras insists on telling his friends about him and, after a few late nights out where he comes back high on people and freezing, golden hair a mess and eyes set far into the future, Grantaire starts writing to them. 

 

Not long after that, he’s in a whirlwind of personalities and beautiful people waiting to be painted - Grantaire is so grateful that at least _he_ can see _them_. 

 

Combeferre squeezes his worry for Enjolras in-between curious questions and thought-through answers. He’s solid and there, a lighthouse for his friends, his letters are candles being lit one by one. Courfeyrac wraps Grantaire up. He’s so much, giving all the time - his words seem chopped off, like he goes on to another thought before the previous one gets the chance to be fully expressed. Enjolras talks about these two like they’re family, and they are. They are, Enjolras sees them and they see him, and they couldn’t be tighter-knit if they tried. 

 

Sometimes Grantaire asks Enjolras to read their letters out loud while he closes his eyes and imagines.

 

Feuilly rushes. The notes he sticks to his friends’ letters radiate a feeling of urgency, so Grantaire always answers them first. 

 

Jehan is a mirror soul to him. They paint on the folded paper like Grantaire would do on a canvas stretched across the room. They take their words and stitch them together with pinpricks of hope, they glaze them over with a sense of craving, a void waiting to be filled, and stick them to the letter, there and simple, a quick study in emotions and how they are felt. Grantaire always paints best after reading what Jehan has written.

 

There’s also Musichetta, her pen steaming with freshly brewed coffee and hatred towards injustice. There’s Joly, whose silent care and matter-of-fact advice stay with Grantaire even when he doesn’t want them to. There’s Bahorel and Bossuet, there’s Cosette and Marius, and even Montparnasse - they have all written to him, some of them short notes saying hello, others long letters complete with stories and anecdotes.

 

It’s going to take Grantaire time to be able to face them, that’s sure, but the smile on Enjolras’ face when he delivers a stack of envelopes and loose papers is brighter than the Sun. And, Grantaire has to admit, his own mouth does twitch up when he opens the letters and wraps himself up in other people’s chatter.

 

* * *

 

One day, Éponine comes over when Grantaire is not around. He stayed over at Enjolras’ more and more often until they decided to cut the farce short and stop pretending they weren’t basically living together already. Grantaire still came over to Éponine’s flat, where they baked and talked or just stayed quiet together. Being seen can get unnecessarily loud sometimes.

 

When Éponine barges in through the door, already halfway through her rant about _something_ , Enjolras startles, because there’s a faint silhouette pacing along the kitchen table. She seems to notice him only when he gasps and she stops in her tracks, eyes wide. Hastily, she scribbles on the edge of an electricity bill: _“Can you see me?”_

 

When Grantaire comes back home and sees them frowning at each other (even though they each have a cup of tea and there’s a pile of papers on the table, which means they can’t dislike each other that much), he smiles through the tears welling up in his eyes and gives them a few more seconds before he lets his presence be known.

 

* * *

 

_How long do we have?_

 

The question doesn’t haunt Grantaire’s dreams, it doesn't keep him awake at night. It’s just there. Grantaire thinks about it when Enjolras sneezes or gets a papercut, it stumbles back into his head as they step out of the shower or walk down the street, holding hands. 

 

They’re cuddling on the couch under a blanket and a duvet taken off their bed and Enjoras is playing idly with Grantaire’s hair, wrapping it absentmindedly around his fingers. There is some movie playing on his laptop but it’s been long forgotten in favour of Grantaire pressing warm kisses to the side of Enjolras’ neck. Everything is slow and calm, but the thought pops out of nowhere and Grantaire can’t keep it in - it rolls off his tongue and wraps them up in anticipation.

 

 “How long do we have?”

 

It’s met with a quiet hum, proving further that Enjolras has been drifting towards sleep. Grantaire feels guilt twist in his stomach, a reminder of what used to be. He’s started though, so: a sharp inhale, fingers in his hair stilling and-

 

 “How much time do you think we have left?”

 

Enjolras looks down at where Grantaire is nestled in the crook of his neck and the smile in his huff is almost audible. Grantaire meets his eyes and smiles back, because that man radiates hope. He radiates hope and he’s so full of life, he should be the one who could stay here forever.

 

“Centuries.”

 

Maybe he is immortal, Grantaire wonders. Maybe he is immortal in his ideals and changes, and influence.

 

Enjolras could have answered _enough_. Grantaire would have understood, even if he was sure he could never have enough of Enjolras.

 

However, Enjolras didn’t answer that and centuries mean nothing to kingdoms that fall.

 

Too soon and not soon _enough_ a storm comes and the wind howls the first notes of a funeral march.

 

* * *

 

A storm comes and destroys whatever dares stay in its way.

 

A storm comes, thunder rattling in Enjolras’ bones, rain hitting his cheeks with targeted cruelty. Clouds hang heavily above the streets full of chanting; electricity crackles in raised voices. The sparks flying from Enjolras’ fingers burn the hottest, for injustice leaves him freezing with ice prickling under his eyelids.

 

Enjolras burns, explodes, then the heat merely simmers. The fire gets blown out as cold settles deep within his skin once and for all.

 

* * *

 

That rain welcomes Grantaire, both as sudden and as anticipated as the news. But the rain comes and goes, leaving his soaked heart not wanting to dry again. Éponine welcomes him too, silently embraces him and holds back his hair when it’s needed. She’s soothing and nurturing, and fierce in her care, a force of nature so different yet so much alike Enjolras that it makes Grantaire choke on his sobs.

 

* * *

 

He disappears again. He is swallowed by a waterfall of loneliness, thundering with what used to be. Memories of before come back, locking him in that tiny bedroom with curtains drawn tightly and nothing but empty canvases to keep him company.

 

Éponine lingers every time she passes the locked door but her hand always falls down without knocking. It’s too soon. It’s too dark in the streets.

 

She strides to the kitchen and puts the kettle on.

 

* * *

 

The silence strives to be broken. It gnaws at everyone, makes sure they remember and crave.

 

It pierces Combeferre’s eyes with a mess of golden hair everywhere he turns, it crawls into Courfeyrac’s ears whenever there’s a shout even mildly outraged. It shakes Feuilly’s fingers, crumples the pages in Jehan’s notebook, claws at Joly’s throat, lurks in every corner of Cosette and Marius’ kitchen. It churns in their stomachs, screams in choked back sobs.

 

So they break it. 

 

Jehan breaks it, they push an avalanche of unspoken confessions, and the rest follow. Eventually, Grantaire joins in, too.

 

* * *

 

 _“There will never be anyone like him. He was poetry brought to life – his words too quick to be written down, for they flew up and around, and inside you. He was a myth, a legend awoken to bring justice, to preach conscience; yet he was too real in his own mystery, too bone and flesh not to be believed in. He was a blizzard so early in the mornings, clutching cups of coffee to warm his hoarse voice. You couldn’t not fall in love with him._ You _couldn’t have not fallen in love. He couldn’t have not fallen in love either, for everything he lacked in his words, he found in you. We made ourselves each other’s family, he left us a family as well, a family of promises kept._

 

_There will be days and months and years, for us and for you. There will be others like him. Let’s hope for them.”_

 

* * *

 

Grantaire reads and his heart dries at the edges. Every letter wraps around it to protect it, to protect him. 

 

Éponine still worries, but she knocks, gets an answer, takes out two mugs and sighs. Then she comes home to the mugs already on the table. It’s all slow but steady.

 

No one checks weather forecasts anymore but they all can feel the draught coming.

 

There comes a day when Grantaire writes back. He adds sketches scrawled hastily on neon post-its or across newspapers. The words he pours out aren’t much, but they’re there and hushed whispers in the back of a café dare to wonder whether they would see.

 

(They would. They would see dark hair and dark circles hanging under eyes, and dark ink spilled across hands. They would see, but no one can be sure, so they don’t push.)

 

When Grantaire picks up the pen to write that one letter he hasn’t written yet, his hand falters. He comes back to that apartment, just this one time, and goes for a brush instead, yet the words painted with it couldn’t have been clearer.

 

* * *

 

_“Can you hear the white noise of your mind?_

 

_It’s in the paintings left to dry along the walls of a tiny room that you always insisted on opening the windows in, since the aggressive smell of oil paint made your head pound._

 

_Can you even hear at all?_

 

_I think you can._

 

_I believe you can._

 

_I feel your frosted fingertips on the windowsill when I put the chipped mug full of steaming coffee on it; I hear your footsteps (start by the window and go to the opposite wall and then go back - a slight hunch, messy hair) in the room next to mine when I’m trying to paint the pathetic cacti._

 

_You were supposed to have so much time. Centuries._

 

_You were supposed to get more time than I did but a storm came. The lightning in your eyes and the thunder of your voice were finally given a run for their money._

 

_Then you disappeared, but I was sure you would come back._

 

_I hope you will come back._

 

_I hope you’ll come back, which is why I paint your words - I let them stuff in the room already filled with canvases to the brink, I let them out through the open window and I can almost hear you sigh with relief. I can see you press your hands to your temples, but there’s no vertical wrinkle on your forehead anymore._

 

_I’m waiting for you to stop becoming and start being, even though for now I have to make do with  just you being more every day._

 

_You were supposed to be that ever alight torch and you did manage that for some time - every morning you would turn your face towards the sun and then shine bright all day. Sometimes you'd burn mercilessly. You were supposed to be a fire, but you're just thin smoke right under the ceiling._

 

_The shiver stretched on the floor and the worn couch, under the bed, is like a whole life lived by your side - like the thousands of lives we were supposed to get. Cold, unfeeling pillows feel softer than your calloused fingertips against my cheek and the cold-wooded door creaks as if it was being pushed open._

 

_I don’t dream about you. Awake, you're always there, somewhere, a glint of a glassy eye or smoky hair; you’re on the paintings and inside the walls, by the empty sink, but not in my dreams. My dreams can only fit “hows” and “whys” and “what ifs”. I don't dream about you because that calm before the storm had been a dream - maybe that’s why I don’t sleep much anymore._

 

_Your touch was a current, not just to me, but to everyone around us. A quick press of your hand or a short-lived moment spent in your arms could make your ideals irresistible._

 

_You let me sharpen the knives by your sides and break mirrors, make the pieces into a path; now you have to wait centuries to be able to step on it._

 

_I’m still here. I make sure the icy windows don't warm up, I always brew two cups of coffee, letting the other one get cold._

 

_I’m your echo. I'm the silence right after a march you’ve led. I'm the breath drawn before a passionate speech._

 

_I’m your echo, but more; I can’t be entirely you, though.”_

 

* * *

 

Then Grantaire needs to face that the deity has been mortal all along.

 

The realisation hits him across the face, but it brings peace, too. Enjolras was everything, yet he was both so much simpler and so much more complicated. He was sleepless nights with fingers clenched tightly, unsteady breaths of helplessness. Grantaire takes it all in and anticipates.

 

Maybe, soon. Maybe.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire hides the letters and paints instead, a figure of a gentle shadow (and not that blinding light it used to be) ever present. A sigh of relief carries through the back room of a café.

 

Éponine wonders, fights that urge, then finally picks up a pen herself.

 

* * *

 

They are all waiting for a ghost, losing just a little hope every year. They’re looking out for notes on their coffee cups and bedside tables, on desks and textbooks, and mirrors. They’re looking in all the wrong places and eventually stop, convinced that the play is done, that they have missed the applause as well. 

 

Mugs start staying in cupboards, paint dries.

 

Storms come and go, yet no one pays attention to them anymore. It’s good; emptier, but doesn’t hurt as much.

 

However, years down the line, a chant wakes in the streets. Grantaire hears it where he’s leaning against the cold wall and he tips his head back. There’s peace somewhere inside him and he’s almost able to grasp it. His hands stretch out, almost like he could actually feel it, when-

 

A young man, shivering under layers and layers of clothes, startles while passing Grantaire, turns his head and gasps.

 

_But centuries last millennia when the kingdoms are free._

**Author's Note:**

> that's it! please let me know if you enjoyed it (commends and kudos are,,,, right there) and thank you for reading!
> 
> also, feel free to hmu on tumblr (@alxfrro)


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